“He say he bane fix das machine an’ he bane want to try him out. Ay tank, by yiminy, it bane lucky he try him yust den.”
CHAPTER XI
THE BOYS CATCH A TARTAR
It was indeed a lucky thing for the Narwhal and all upon her that the deaf-mute had been tinkering with the motor and had started the machine at exactly the right instant. Scarcely had the schooner cleared the reef when, to the north, the bay was blotted from sight by a white wall, a roar like a cataract came booming across the water and sea birds flew screaming past with wings aslant.
One glance Cap’n Pem gave and then, at the top of his leathern lungs, he bellowed orders fast and furiously. The men, yet at their posts, leaped to his bidding. Captain Edwards who was still at the wheel tugged desperately at the spokes. Mr. Kemp himself led the willing crew aloft and, working like demons, the men stripped the vessel of her lighter sails. And not an instant too soon. Before the first reef cringle was knotted in the foresail, the squall was upon them. With a maniacal shriek the gale tore through the rigging, the water dashed in bucketfuls of icy spray across the decks, and at the sudden irresistible pressure the Narwhal heeled until half her decks were awash, and a raging blizzard blotted out sea and land.
Farther and farther the staunch old schooner heeled to the wind. Clinging to shrouds, backstays, and rigging, the men and boys waited, expecting each second that the schooner would actually capsize. The sleet beat upon them, stinging like needles, and the blinding snow swirled and eddied and piled in drifts upon the deck.
Cap’n Pem’s mouth opened and shut. Mr. Kemp cupped his hands to his lips, but not a word could be heard above the terrific din of the howling wind, the rattle of hail, the roaring of the gale in the sails, the whipping of loose rigging, the creak and groans of straining spars and the lashing thunder of the rapidly rising seas. Then slowly, inch by inch, the Narwhal swung around. Gradually she righted, the water poured in cataracts from her scuppers and, shaking herself like an impatient horse, she leaped forward and tore madly through the foaming water towards the south.
Onward she sped through the blizzard, before the howling gale. With jaws hard set and eyes straining, the three men at the wheel panted and strained and threw their weight upon the spokes in a mighty effort to hold her to her course. Forward, Mr. Kemp and two men huddled in the lee of the winch and peered ahead, striving to pierce the eddying, whirling wall of white. The two boys, awed, frightened, and shivering, crouched beside the deck house, too fascinated, too thrilled to go below for warmer garments. Twice great dim shapes loomed ahead. Each time the frenzied shout of the lookout came in time and the Narwhal sped past the bergs in safety. Again and again a thundering crash shook the schooner from stem to stern as her plunging bow sheared through floating cakes of ice. Once a dark mass of rocks loomed for an instant within a hundred yards and the next second was gone, swallowed up in the all-enveloping white.
But luck was with those on the Narwhal. By a miracle she escaped the bergs; no large pan ice lay in her course; jagged reefs and rock-bound islets were safely passed, and an hour after she had first started on her mad rush before the gale, the squall ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. The wind dropped to a steady blow, the snow ceased to fall, blue sky showed overhead, and, ten minutes later, the decks were streaming with water and there was a steady downpour from aloft as the sun melted the tons of ice and snow that had accumulated during the brief but terrific blizzard.